Letting go
by valsore
Summary: Lou finally gets the courage to tell Kid about Wicks.


**I know this have been done before. But I have always had my own version.**

"I only knew her a few days, but I loved Charlotte", Travis said, looking at Lou through the cell bars. "The way she laughed, and even how she looked at me… She made me feel special."

Lou smiled sympathetically at him.

"I never felt that way before…" He paused. "I could have helped her get over her past," he went on, angrily. "Wicks didn´t give us a chance!"

Lou gave him a bewildered look.

"She told you?" she softly asked, surprised.

"Not in so many words, but I knew. I loved her for who she was, not where she came from." He sighed. "I pray to God she knew that."

"I think she did," Lou said, smiling sadly.

She stared at him for a moment, and then looked away. She felt this sudden realization breaking through her mind. Travis knew. He knew about Charlotte and he didn´t care; he loved her anyway. How was that even possible?

He really had cared about Charlotte. So much that he was going to give his own life to make sure justice was done for her. He actually murdered the man he held responsible for her death. And he knew about her past.

She felt a tug in her heart. Maybe Kid would understand too. Maybe he deserved at least a chance to understand.

Lou knew he loved her. Things had been going on so well between them this time. It made her so angry and sad this had to happen just now, when it seemed that they actually had a second chance to be together, when they were really working things out. That was the reason she had been so furious when she found Kid at Charlotte´s room. She had been terrified he would find out about Wicks. Lou never intended for him to know, not now, not ever.

But now she knew she had to tell him. Even if that meant losing him for good this time. She understood now that she would never have peace in her heart if they had this terrible secret between them. Lou knew too well she would be devastated if he walked away again. She had already tried being without him, and she had been just miserable. But for her peace of mind, she had to bare her soul to him. The time had come. And maybe he would find in his heart a way to forgive her for keeping this from him. Maybe he loved her enough.

So right after leaving Teaspoon office, Lou started looking for him. She knew she had to do this before she lost her nerve. She didn´t have to look around long. He was right there, walking down the street. Lou took a deep breath, and ran after him.

"Kid!" she called him.

Kid looked back and slowed down to wait for her.

"Hey!" he said

"Hey! Mind if I join you?"

"Sure!"

They walked side by side. Lou could sense how he kept staring worriedly at her and then looking away.

"I´m ready to talk now," she said, giving him only short glances.

"You don´t have to," Kid softly said. Lou smiled to herself. He was really trying to give her space, even if he had been worried sick over her the last few days. Even after he saw how she almost murdered that man. And she loved him even more for that.

"I want to," she told him.

"Then I´m ready to listen."

They walked in silence down the street and towards the station. Then Lou led him to the back of the barn to have some privacy. She leaned her shoulders against the wall and stared at the ground, her arms crossed in front of her defensively. Out of the corner of her eye she could see as Kid leaned beside her, hands in his pockets and looking at the distance, as if he didn´t want to pressure her by staring. He said nothing, just waited.

Lou took a deep breath. She suddenly felt her heart pounding. There was no way back once she started talking, no way back once he knew. This wasn´t going to be easy, but surprisingly, the fact that she´d already told somebody actually helped a little.

She cleared her throat and started the same story she'd told Rachel just the night before.

"I met Wicks in Saint Joe, right after I ran away from the orphanage." Lou sensed as Kid turned to look at her. "I was only twelve. It was a very bad winter, and I just couldn't find a job. I really didn´t know what to do. Then Wicks found me in the street, and offered me a job as a laundress in this… whorehouse that he owned. You have to believe me Kid," she hastily said, always looking at the ground, "that at first I honestly didn´t know what kind of place it was." She paused. "Though I was so desperate at the time that I would have probably taken the job anyway."

Kid didn´t say anything, just listened. Lou knew he didn´t want to interrupt her now that she'd gotten up the courage to talk to him, and she silently thanked him for it.

"All the girls there were so mean to me. Only Charlotte was nice. She was my only friend." Thinking about Charlotte caused a lump to lodge in her throat, and tears threatened to fill her eyes, but she fought hard not to let them out. "Nobody paid much attention to me at first. But after a year or so, I noticed that some of the men started to look funny at me, specially Wicks."

Kid shifted positions. Now he knew where this was heading, and suddenly he didn´t want to listen anymore. But he had to. So he braced himself for what he knew was coming.

Lou´s breathing got shallower, faster. She felt how her hands began to go numb and started to shake. It was like she simply couldn't go on; so she just stood there, arms crossed, staring at the ground, trying very hard not to cry. Then she felt Kid´s hand on her shoulder.

"Lou", she heard him whisper, "it´s okay…"

She swallowed hard, trying to find her voice again. She'd been wrong. This was much harder than telling Rachel.

"One night, I was in the kitchen when he came in; and I saw this look in his eyes. I couldn´t figure out what it was, but it sent a shiver down my spine. I mumbled some lame excuse and ran to my room, but he followed me." Lou sighed heavily. "I locked myself in, and hid behind a dresser. I tried to be really quiet. But obviously he knew exactly where I was, and he had the key."

She paused again and looked up, staring blindly into the distance. She could feel Kid standing right beside her, still holding her shoulder. She couldn't breathe.

_Do it!_, she scolded herself._ Just tell him! Let this go already!_

"He came in, and loomed over me. He had this horrible look on his face. "You´re all grown up, Louise", he said, and then…" Lou felt her voice breaking as she could no longer hold back the tears. _Dammit_, she thought, _don´t cry!_

Kid squeezed her shoulder tighter. She could actually feel the rage building up inside of him, radiating out through his skin. He was breathing slowly and deeply now, and Lou knew he was fighting to control himself.

She wiped her tears with the back of her sleeve, but they just kept flowing.

"I… I tried to fight him, Kid, I really did! But he was too strong, and I was so terrified!" She started to sob as her back slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. She held her knees and looked down again. "You have to believe me, Kid. Please say that you believe me!"

She felt how Kid immediately kneeled down beside her and tried to hold her, but she moved away and he didn´t insist.

"Oh my God, Lou, you don´t need to tell me that! Of course I believe you!" His soft voice was shaking. "It wasn´t you fault, baby!"

Lou tried with all her might to stop sobbing. Kid´s pity was the last thing she wanted. _Just put yourself together! _She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could hear Wicks' voice reverberating in her head, see that horrible smirk on his face. The things he said to her, had hurt even more than the violence.

_"Don´t tell me you didn´t know what you were doing here, Louise. It´s time for you to start doing your real job, but it seems I´ll have to break you first! We´ll see how feisty you are after I´m done with you!"_

_"You´re worthless now, Louise. You´re nothing but trash. You really think anybody would want a little whore like you? There´s nowhere left for you to go now!" _

"Lou," Kid whispered.

She lifted her head again and opened her eyes, but still didn´t look at him.

"Charlotte," Lou choked out. "She helped me, even knowing what Wicks would do to her when he found out. She snuck me out of there the very next morning, and bought me a ticket to Saint Louis. She told me to go away and never look back. If it hadn't been for her…" She shook her head. "And when she asked for my help, I failed her. She just wanted the chance that I had, and I couldn't help her! Oh, Charlotte!"

Lou broke into tears this time. She was shaking uncontrollably. There, it was done.

Over the years, Kid had worked hard to force himself to control his emotions, to never let the anger or the rage get the best of him. But he had never felt the way he was feeling right now. He was beside himself; he could feel his blood boiling. At the same time, there was this sudden desolation sweeping over him. In a split second, a whirlwind of thoughts raced through his mind.

This was the reason why she had starting dressing as a boy. Why she was so cautious and wary with him at the beginning. Why she had cried the first time they were together. Why she needed so desperately to prove that she could take care of herself, which she did pretty damned well! This was why all his over protectiveness and worries had only managed to drive her further away from him. She needed to feel independent, strong, self confident, and what he had done was ask her to marry him, only to be able to have some kind of control over her, to be able take care of her. He wanted to kick himself so hard right now…

All the times he tried to protect her, all the times he had been out of his mind with worry that something bad would happen to her…and it turned out he had been too late all along.

But Lou needed him now, and he couldn´t let her see how upset he was. So he gathered all his strength to pull himself together. He had failed her enough already.

She moved away again when Kid tried to hold her once more, but this time he didn´t let her. He put his arms around her real tight and didn´t let her go. He held her while she cried herself out, until she held him back and buried her face on his neck.

"I´m so sorry, Kid!"

"Lou, you have nothing to be sorry about."

"I know I should have told you from the start, when we…" She could hardly speak between her sobs.

"You didn´t have to tell me anything, Lou. That was your decision, yours alone."

"I was so ashamed…"

"It ain´t nothing to be ashamed of."

"I was so afraid that you would think that I was…a whore…that you wouldn´t want me anymore…"

"For God´s sake, Lou!" Kid exclaimed, pulling back and looking directly at her. "I could never think that about you! Never! No matter what! How could I ever not want you? I´ve never wanted anyone so badly in my whole life! You´re the love of my life, don´t you know that by now?"

Lou kept her gaze focused on the ground. She didn´t want to look at him. She didn´t want to know what was in his eyes right now. She couldn´t take the disgust, or even worse, the pity, that she knew she would find in there.

Kid was still staring directly at her face, holding her by the shoulders.

"Lou", he said very softly, "please look at me."

_Don´t be a coward_, Lou told herself. _Just get this over with._

She braced herself and quickly lifted her eyes to meet his. His beloved blue eyes, filled only with the deepest love and concern, shining with tears.

"Don´t you have any idea of how much I love you, woman?" he hoarsely said. "I´m the one who should be sorry! Sorry because I didn´t make you feel that you could trust me enough! Sorry because I smothered you when you needed me to give you space! Because I wasn´t there to protect you!"

"Kid," Lou found herself grabbing his shirt, "it was a long time ago! There´s nothing you could have –"

"I know," he said, "I know. But still, you had to face him alone again, Lou! That´s just monstrous! You shouldn´t had to go through that!" He shook his head slightly, a look of admiration in his eyes. "You took him on all by yourself, Lou! Just when I think you can´t amaze me more… How can you possibly be this brave?"

Lou shivered a little. She felt anything but brave right now.

"I just…" Kid went on, looking away and shaking his head, this sudden fire in his eyes. "I had this bastard right in front of me, Lou. I…" He couldn't go on. He wished so much that Wicks wasn´t already dead, so he could walk right into his cell and skin him alive with his bare hands.

There were tears of rage running down his cheeks now. Lou had only seeing him cry two times before. She took his chin and turned his face to look at her. With the other hand she wiped his tears as she smiled weakly at him.

He looked at her and pulled her tightly into his embrace. Lou held him, too. She always felt so safe in his arms.

"I was just so afraid of losing you again." She didn´t notice she said that out loud.

"Never", he whispered, kissing her hair. "I meant it when I told you I ain´t going anywhere, Lou. Not this time."

They stayed there for a while, sitting in the floor, holding each other.

After a while Lou let Kid go and got up, grabbing his hand and pulling him up with her.

"Kid," she said, looking at him

"Yes, Lou?"

"I really don´t want all this getting between us. I don´t want us to be different, please promise we won´t!"

Kid gave her his sweetest smile.

"If anything, I think things will be better, Lou."

He understood so many things he wished he had known before. Maybe that way he wouldn´t have acted like such an idiot in the past…_Then again_, he thought, _perhaps I would have been worse._

Lou shyly smiled back at him, and grabbed his hand as they walked through the barn and towards the bunkhouse. She actually didn´t care if anyone saw them at that moment

"I think I should talk to Teaspoon, Kid," Lou said thoughtfully."I do owe him an explanation."

"You don't have to if you don´t want to, Lou," Kid said.

"I think I want to, Kid. I mean, he´s like a father to us, and I know he´s been terribly worried too."

Kid nodded in silence.

"Kid," she paused and looked up at him, "will you come with me?"

He looked back at her.

"Of course I will, Lou."

They got to the steps of the bunkhouse, and Lou stopped and sighed again.

"What it is, honey?" Kid softly asked.

"It´s just," she said, sadly shaking her head, "when Charlotte told me to never look back, that´s exactly what I tried to do, you know? It took me years to get rid of these… nightmares, to feel safe again… And now I feel I´m right back where I began."

Kid stepped in front of her and raised her hand to his lips to kiss it.

"Well", he said, as she looked up at him again, "if you let me, I would like to be right beside you this time, Lou. That´s if you want me to, of course," he hastily added.

Lou smiled at him.

"I´d like that, Kid."

From the bunkhouse´s window, Rachel watched as Kid and Lou approached hand in hand. By the look on both their faces, she knew exactly what they've been discussing. She smiled to herself.

_Those two are gonna be just fine_, she thought. _God knows they deserve it._

THE END

**Infinite thanks to Pilarcita, as always!**


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